Swallowing defeat, tasting pride, chewing satisfaction up and spitting misery out

The sky as an ever-changing map

The cherry blossoms as red-cheeked children, smiles missing teeth

The ripples in the water as words we do not say

Over the canyons, over the falls, over the hill where the winds stay stagnant and a heartbeat echos for a lifetime

That celestial permanence where nature breathes deeply and does not choke, floats facedown in the river and surfaces screaming

The cornfields as a compass, guiding you home, over the dirt roads

Rain as needles peppering the skin

The sun as a world-weary neighbor who rarely shows her face anymore

The trees as teachers, as swaying women, as soldiers

Slender, gnarled, thick, imposing, strong, wounded, hunched over

The creeks overflow, the daisies wilt, like clockwork summer comes again

Like the story’s been written out, and you’re still young enough to appreciate it

The mountains as mediators, smoothing over the valley’s cascading fury and clenched teeth

The weeping willows as rambunctious cousins, sorry to see you go

The wildflowers as pins on the map, pockmarking the horizon

As if you don’t know this path, as if the land isn’t in your bones and the dirt isn’t buried in the lines of your palms

The fire escape as an ephemeral vehicle that transcends space and time

As a corporeal being who washes the blood off your freckles

And spits on your enemy’s boots, lends you a shoulder, a box of tissues

That teaches you to tilt your face to the sky and let each pounding needle tear at your nose, scream into your red mouth, and fall down wailing

The sky hums with electricity, that vast neon oil spill, that dreary whirlpool of murky smog, cotton candy blue melting to warm pink

Dreaming wide awake, blurry Polaroids

The edges curling, blackening

Blue moons, late nights

Raspberry slushies, birthday kisses, long-standing traditions

Red lips and sticky fingers

Same difference

It’s only us now

Tell me a story, tell me how it ends

Key lime pie crusts, a sunset that stretches on for eternity, forever, another pretty word that reeks of promise

Tell me tonight you’ll forget

Promise me tomorrow you remember

The radiator is broken, the sky is neon, electric and alive

It tastes of cotton candy, melted sugar

It smells saccharine

They say love is gentle, why do they compare it to falling?

Because of this, because of you, because of us

And this, and how it will corrupt us and ruin us

And we still won’t learn

Are you alright now?

Can we go inside now?

We fled to America

Land of white teeth and Coca-Cola, and isn’t that a contradiction?

Land of opportunity, but truthfully, we weren’t looking for that

It was the Cadillacs and rolling hills, white shirts and blue swimming pools

We set up in Hollywood

Gold chains and champagne

Our dreams tasted like money and kerosene

Neon signs blinking, goading us on, laughing as the sun rose and we saw the tarnished silver screens

The trampled red Solo cups

We left in the morning

Tied up our loose ends, buried them with our dreams

We stood in an empty swimming pool that had once run red with blood and green with money, blue with sadness and white with lies

They say you can’t change the ending

And I have studied that book

Its ashy, pale-faced heroes

Water-logged messages, cyphers unwound until they curl up again

Displeased that no one could unravel their secrets

One day, they’ll burn, orange-tinted flames caressing rose-scented pages

History hurts

The heroes always lose, and I should’ve told you that before you ran headfirst into the current

Should’ve told you I was scared

Should’ve known I’d back out

I want to find god in you

Drown in icy currents with you

It’ll swallow us whole, that awful blue

Like an ocean of smudged ink

So maybe the castle was only tangled weeds and splintered rope holding a dull sword over the king’s head

The crests were bleeding the coffers dry

They dig us up, hungry and human

We are bones, limp and longing and so lifelike almost

Our hands are interlocked, they’ll take that too

Spin history into silk and weave tapestries out of lies

We lost our voices seven epochs ago

We stood against the changing tide and let the blustering waves propel us forward

Battered down against that coarse sand

This time, I’ll be there with you

The story isn’t set in stone

We are made of marble

Maybe one day I’ll tell you the story about the flowers in the meadow

I’ll make it sweet, honeysuckles and dandelions

Weeds nipping at your ankles, so you ran to the tree-line

Laughing for hours

I’ll make it last forever

I lassoed a cloud for you, but it disappeared

The rope fell and landed on a strong branch, perfect to hang a swing from

So I did

You floated above the whole countryside, heels bookending the sun

The wood never rotted, the rope never frayed

The patches of green grass never faded

The rain stayed away

I’ll tell you the days tasted like honey

We lined our pockets with wildflowers and stole pebbles from the creek bed

Wild thieves with wild dreams

Cowboys and pirates and sailors

Though there is no law here, only nature, only silence and unwritten promises

I’ll come back, I’ll return what I stole

I’ll tell you we crossed the river on steady legs, balanced on a fallen aspen

And never looked down or back

Our footprints embedded in the slippery mud on the other side of the creek

Rosy skies and the cosmos at our fingertips

I’ll tell you about it even when you don’t remember

I’ll slice an apricot and pretend it’s the sun that waned to let the moon shine

The clouds the cobwebs draped in the corners

The tree limbs the cracks below the windowsill, so far below you

Here is the piece of rope that held the swing

Here is the sound of running water and the smell of grass

Reach for sunlight, caress each fragile lily and tulip

Can you picture it yet?

The sun dipping below the trees, pleased with itself

The moon in full ephemeral bloom

Red brick clay creek beds

Legs stretching tall, going far

You, a brave soldier, in the middle of it all

Me, a storyteller, at the end of it all

I’ll tell you the city was still there when we returned

Arms full of flowers and fruit

Cheeks soft and sore

I’ll tell you we ate like kings and kept court in the living room

Dust swarming but harmless because your lungs are good now

And the shower is warm, the water reliable

The days were ripe sunflower seeds

The nights were dewy leaves and apple cores

One day, I’ll tell you the story, promise

I think about a time before time all the time

Before the sun’s journey carved the world up

Wrote new edicts called days with hours and minutes and even smaller increments, too small to matter but large enough to fill and call it time

I think about a time when sleep came and went and didn’t care whether the sun was shining or the moon was gleaming

Sleep just sunk into the bones of the young and old impartially

Because a few wrinkles did not mean more years, only that one had walked the earth a while more

Even that is to splice a lifetime into segments, and I think about times when time didn’t matter

Tomorrow, I will think about a time before compasses when one could steer themself in any direction without a particular destination in mind

Yesterday, I thought about what it means to waste something

My father always says keep it simple, write in the first person, but sometimes, the story isn’t about me

Sometimes, it’s yours, told by me

Sometimes, it’s ours, and you don’t want to tell it

I don’t know when a story becomes mine or theirs or no one’s

I suppose the last is easy: when it is forgotten

Not a dusty tome cracking at the spine but a fading whisper in an empty cathedral that patiently awaits a response until it leaves

Often, it’s mine alone to tell and listen to until every character is bored of reciting their lines and having the same thoughts, the ones I doled out like Halloween candy

I nudge them together and watch their mechanical lives play out as if I didn’t carve them and paint on their woeful frowns, joyful smiles, scornful scowls

As if I don’t know the ending, I watch avidly, pick favorites, place wagers on their next moves

Let’s say today they are in a town and tomorrow a village

Now compare the differences

Now tell me why the shade of lavender in the fading sunset— a frame captured, the others dusty periwinkle— matters

I wonder why the curtains are blue, even if I picked that shade from a hundred other similar ones and settled on icy azure because it suited the mood and I was feeling melodramatic

I watch their triumphs, count their losses, brush their dismay off their shoulders like sawdust, because it is

I pretend their story isn’t a reflection of mine, because it isn’t

I pretend I haven’t been moving them all along, because I am

This is my world, I say, so the sky is pink

The clouds have always been suspended cotton balls playing tag against a powder blue sky

Everything pauses, the tin man’s heart stutters

I think it’s over, and the curtain falls

She is forever immortalized on the page

The tides will not seek forgiveness when they wash away her footprints

The reeds she trampled on will right themselves

The world will forget she ever stood there

Even I will when I’m six feet under and sharing dirt with the old poets and self-righteous kings and tired corpses

The swirling brown of her eyes will be immortalized on paper, though

The ink never forgets, even when it’s smudged and the page is torn and old

We’ll be wandering Elysium but the curve of her brow will be etched into history

So don’t you see?

I’m glad I wrote the story down

Shaking hands and clammy palms gripping a pen and scrawling her name a hundred times on the back of a Post-it note

Splintered consonants and fused vowels

All putting into words what I’ll never say out loud

We’ll be forgotten, but the stories won’t

To me, at least

Human evolution at its finest form is the passing down of knowledge to future generations

So that someone in another lifetime remembers

And I hope they remember her

Poets are always painters

Lovers are always fighters

The Pope couldn’t stop me from holding your hand while the angels are singing

And, buddy, I’d love to see him try

You’re a sin I won’t recant

They’ll say I’m a heretic, but I’d throw myself from the roof of the Wittenberg Cathedral, look John Calvin right in the eye and tell him I was predestined to love you

I was put on this Earth to be your canvas

Paint me in soft pastels or black and blue acrylics swirling like the deep ocean

Dip a clean brush in new paint and call me your own masterpiece

You know I’d never disagree

Because really you made me, I’m made of you

Beauty is fleeting, but you are forever

I will die, but this love will live on

Swear it, I’ll be six feet under, and they still won’t have buried me deep enough

I’ll carve every promise I ever made you on my headstone

Until my own name is covered up, and that, too, is yours if you’ll have it

Burn me, and with my dying breath, I’ll be screaming your name

My cries will echo in their ears until it drives them insane

When they’re at the pearly gates, I hope the angels’ trumpets sound like a lover scorned, sound like me, sound like us

Every time I step in a puddle and make it deeper, I am saying, “I was here, I lived, you can’t erase me”

Every twig that snaps under my careless feet is a relic proving I was here and I loved you

They can’t hide that

They can rewrite my words, smother history until it’s coughing up lies

But they’ll never change you and me

Every word whispered into the void my cracked, bleeding lips is proof of my existence

And they cannot mention me without addressing the simple known fact that I love you and have always belonged to you